


Only One Like You

by WrathoftheStag (Mwuahna)



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Dreams, Dreams vs. Reality, F/M, Jacob remembers, Love, Queenie and Jacob reunited, remembering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-22 06:03:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13160799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mwuahna/pseuds/WrathoftheStag
Summary: Jacob Kowalski dreams every night, and sometimes it's about her.  It would be great if his dreams wouldn't be making him miserable and wish for a life he can't have.  A brief little character study on Jacob after being obliviated.





	Only One Like You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Devereauxs_Disease](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Devereauxs_Disease/gifts).



_“There’s loads like me.”_

_“No, no. There’s only one like you.”_

**+++**

His day starts out the same, every time. 

Each morning Jacob Kowalski is up at 4:00 a.m. He rises from bed, brushes his teeth, showers quickly, gets dressed, and walks the three blocks to Kowalski’s. He fires up the ovens and is ready to open by 5:30.

He rolls out his loaves, cookies and cakes from the cooling racks and places his most impressive work in the bakery shop windows. It’s been a month since Kowalski’s opened and he’s thankful for the instant success it’s had -- and even more thankful for his mysterious benefactor. 

Still, he feels something is… missing.

**+++**

Central Park calls to him, so Jacob visits often. He enjoys seeing the plains there. _Plains?_ Jacob shakes his head and smiles at his own silliness.

One day, he is walking through the park eating his lunch and is struck by an intensely vivid memory -- but he has no recollection making it. For what sense does it make to stand in football gear dodging a large beast? A fantastic beast. Looming and otherworldy. 

“Erumpent?” he mutters softly to himself. 

The word makes no sense. Jacob takes a bite of his sandwich and makes his way back toward the subway station.

**+++**

When Jacob was a very young boy, he’d sit in his babcia’s kitchen and watched as she made kołaczki. She would let him stand on a chair and see as she assembled the various jams for the filling. Raspberry, apricot, strawberry. She’s let him taste, taste it all.

“I wanna make kołaczki just like yours,” Jacob said.

“My sweet, sweet boy, and so you shall. And every girl will fall in love with you when they taste your kołaczki,” she said as she pressed a kiss onto the top of his head.

“Babcia, I don’t want that!” Jacob said shaking his head and helping himself to some more jam. 

“One day you will. You'll meet a girl so magical, you'll want to be with her and bake for her all the time.”

Jacob laughed and looked at his babcia adoringly.

_Malina, morela, truskawka..._

**+++**

4:00 a.m., awake, shower, dress, walk. Bake, display, open, sell, sell, sell. Jacob is thriving and everything is good until the nights when it starts not to be. 

Jacob thinks he’s happy, feels happy, until he begins to dream almost every night. His dreams are unusual. Most unusual, and he’s almost impressed with himself that he can think those things up. 

“I ain’t got the brains to make this up…” And yet he thinks, maybe he does.

New York falling, rising again, tiny leaves that move, bank robberies, animals that disappear, and others that fall in love with gold and gems.

He makes strudel. Lots and lots of strudel. He makes those animals he sees -- those visions -- out of sugar, flour, yeast. Dusting his dreams with powdered sugar; putting his secret world on display for all to witness. 

_Cukier, mąka, drożdże…_

**+++**

The dreams take a different turn when a woman begins to appear in his slumber. Coppery hair shimmers in his unconscious mind. A smile as warm as his ovens.

Alert. Alive. Jacob reaches out to touch her.

“It’s okay, honey,” she says and then she’s gone.

Jacob sits up in bed and looks out the window. Steam from the manhole covers rises up to meet the streets. The moon pale and silent giving him no clue. 

Jacob sighs and puts his head on the pillow hoping to see her in his dreams once again. 

**+++**

He begins to worry when he thinks he sees the mysterious woman on the streets of New York. A flash of curls, a blur of pink. And then she’s gone…

Jacob feels like it’s all downhill from there. 

Every night the same thing, the beautiful woman with the curly hair. They run together, they are at a speakeasy together, they chase and are being chased. And sometimes, she even kisses him… until the rains come down and she’s gone. Gone. Crushing his spirit again. Every morning alone and aching. He doesn’t understand any of it -- but he understand how he feels about her. 

How does one explain it?  
How can you want what you can’t ever have?  
How can you be in love with a dream? 

And so, Jacob does his best to shove the memories down the moment he opens his eyes. 

**+++**

“Where do you get your ideas from, Mr. Kowalski?”

He frowns momentarily, and knows he can’t tell Mrs. Levingston the truth. 

“I don’t know, they just come!” he says with a manufactured smile and hands her her purchases, “Here you go. Don’t forget this. Enjoy!”

And as Jacob is talking to his assistant Henry, he hears the shop bell ring. He is about to go into his usual greeting by rote when he stops… stunned.

There she is. The woman from his dreams. She looks at Jacob with hope on her face and brightness in her eyes. And in that moment, Jacob remembers. And in that moment, all of his love and wishes and dreams are smiling right back at him.

_“There’s loads like me.”_

_“No, no. There’s only one like you.”_

Jacob genuinely smiles for the first time in weeks, and approaches the woman with hands reaching out and heart opened wide.

**Author's Note:**

> babcia = grandmother
> 
> Malina, morela, truskawka = raspberry, apricot, strawberry
> 
> Cukier, mąka, drożdże = sugar, flour, yeast


End file.
